mizzle - From Ulster to America
Source: From Ulster to America: The Scotch-Irish Heritage of American English
Author: Michael Montgomery
Comments: From Ulster to America recounts the lasting impact eighteenth-century settlers from Ulster have made on the development of the English language of the United States. The book documents over 500 vocabulary items contributed to American English by these ‘Scotch-Irish’ settlers. Each ‘shared’ term with its meaning is authenticated by quotations from both sides of the Atlantic. This searchable online version of his book takes its text from the dictionary part of the second edition published by the Ullans Press in 2017.
mizzle
1 n (also mizzling) A fine, mist-like rain. [< perhaps from Dutch misel, mysel ‘drizzling rain’; oed mizzle n1 1483→; dare mizzle n ‘a very fine misty rain’ chiefly South, South Midland]
Ulst.:
1880 Patterson Antrim/Down Glossary 69 = (1) a drizzle; (2) to drizzle, to run away, to disappear.
1959 Gregory Ulster Ballads 21 I mind, when I was a slip o’ a wean, / A-waddlin’ tae school, in the sun an’ rain / (An’ mitchin’, odd whiles, ’gainst the master’s rules).
1981 McClean Ulster Words V 2 mizzle = light rain.
1981 Pepper Ulster-English Dict 51 I’d left my umbrella in to be restrung, and there I was, caught in the mizzle.
1990 Todd Words Apart 116 Sure that’s not rain. It’s not even a mizzle.
U.S.:
1899 Green Virginia Word-Book 285 = fine rain.
1953 Randolph and Wilson Down in Holler 265 = a very light shower.
1976 Garber Mountain-ese 58 It ain’t raining much, jist a mizzlin’ uv fallin’ weather.
2 vb To rain in fine, mist-like drops. [oed mizzle vb1 ‘to rain in very fine drops; drizzle’ dialect; dare mizzle vb1 ‘to rain in very fine drops’ chiefly South, South Midland]
Ulst.:
1953 Traynor Donegal Glossary 187 = to rain in very fine drops, drizzle.
c1955 Montgomery Heard in Ulster 83 There’s a mizzlin’ rain ootside.
1990 McIntyre Some Handlin’ 40 = raining lightly: ‘You would soon be drookit the more it’s only mizzlin’, so put on your coat’.
1991 O’Kane You Don’t Say 95 = to rain lightly: ‘It was mizzlin’ when I came in’.
U.S.:
1843 Hall New Purchase 123 The rain kept mizzling away.
1952 Wilson Folk Speech NC 565-66 = to rain in fine or foglike drops.
1973 Davis ’Pon My Honor 99 = drizzle, rain with small drops.
1974 Fink Bits Mt Speech 16 They was a mizzling sort of rain.
